


Marked

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Because I’m a sucker for soulmates fics.Whether it’s the “soulmate’s name written on hand/wrist from birth/certain age” or those “everyone has a clock counting down to the exact moment they meet their soulmate” or whatever else anon can think of, I’d just love some JackRabbit or BlackIce finding each other as soulmates.+rather significant age difference (Jack is 18-19, Bunny or Pitch as late 20’s-early 30’s)++even if they’re “meant to be,” they don’t really fall in love or get why they’re soulmates until later on"In this world, as soon as the younger soulmate becomes mature enough for a relationship, their name appears in their handwriting on the inner forearm of their soulmate, and their soulmate’s name appears on their arm. However, some people never get a name at all. These people are known as blanks, and modern society really isn’t set up for them.Cosmo thinks he’s a blank, and has learned to accept that. He’s in a relationship with Nicholas, a blank activist. And then one day, Jack’s name appears on Cosmo’s arm. He knows what happens in movies at this point, but that’s not what he wants. Nicholas helps him look for alternative paths.
Relationships: Jack Frost/Pitch Black, Nicholas St. North/Pitch Black
Kudos: 19
Collections: Blackice Short Fics, Pitchmas Short Fics





	Marked

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 12/22/2016.

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! NO!”  
  
“Mm, this is why I am letting you sleep in when you stay over,” Nicholas said drowsily. He turned over to try to begin to understand what warranted such vehemence from Cosmo so early in the morning. The first thing he saw was Cosmo shoving his arms back underneath the covers. The second thing he saw was that Cosmo seemed, astonishingly, to be holding back tears.  
  
Cosmo hated the tears welling in his eyes. Most people, when they noticed the only thing about him that society deemed worth noticing, expected him to be entirely emotionless. He’d learned to avoid showing his feelings in order to be seen as, if not normal, at least as someone who fit into the world’s schema.  
  
But now he didn’t have to do that anymore. For some reason, that thought made him even more determined not to cry.  
  
He stared at Nicholas in silence, taking in his broad shoulders, his heavy, powerful frame, his long, well-cared for grey hair and beard, his sparkling blue eyes, and the dense ink of the tattoos covering his arms, all of them chosen, none of them a name. He had chosen Nicholas. Chosen him. He had thought that they could be happy. He had been so close to being really happy.  
  
Cosmo slowly drew his right arm out from beneath the covers. In somewhat messy handwriting, the name “Jack Frost” stood out on his forearm in stark black ink. Or, well, not really ink. Soulmate marks couldn’t be distinguished from ordinary skin, even with the most cutting-edge tests. “I don’t want it, Nick,” he said flatly. “I spent too long learning to not want it. I had just…I had just started to find the freedom in being a blank. Fuck! I…Nick! I don’t want this! I don’t want it! I wanted _you_ and now….FUCK!”  
  
Nicholas sat up and drew Cosmo into his arms, where Cosmo melted against him.  
  
“And now I’m betraying this Jack, whoever he is, wherever he is,” Cosmo muttered.  
  
“No matter what anyone says, you cannot betray someone you have never met,” Nicholas said. He rubbed Cosmo’s back. “You are not the first person this has happened to.”  
  
“Well, sure,” Cosmo said. “You see it in movies, and on TV all the time. Two blanks try to have a relationship and it’s awful and then one of them finally has their soulmate mark show up, they go on an epic quest to find them, and then they’re so much happier! And usually the other blank kills themselves. The only thing that would make this situation more of a movie is if it was Jacqueline and not Jack.”  
  
“Rest assured I am certainly not going to kill myself,” Nicholas said. “I meant that you are not the only person who has been disappointed when their soulmate mark appeared.”  
  
“Disappointed is putting it lightly. Nick, if this Jack Frost is only having his name show up now, that means that he’s only just become mature by the soul mark standard—and while those are vague and kind of messed up sometimes, that means he’s probably over ten years younger than me! In a completely different stage of his life! I don’t want that relationship, or I think I don’t, I suppose when I see him it’ll all fall into place. Ugh.”  
  
Nicholas gave him a tight hug. “Again, you are not the only person this has happened to. Okay?” He kissed Cosmo’s forehead. “I am going to make breakfast now. You call into work, and so will I.”  
  
“What can I tell them?” Cosmo asked dully.  
  
Nicholas chuckled. “Well, your job has great benefits, doesn’t it? You could tell them the truth.”  
  
“And I’d get as much time off as I needed to find Jack Frost,” Cosmo said slowly. “I remember…they’ll pay for plane tickets to any part of the world, any visas…This society is fucked up.”  
  
“We knew that ever since we started to wear long sleeves in public, yes? Now we need food, before anything else.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“You are going to have to find him.” Nicholas had waited until Cosmo had a huge mouthful of pancakes before saying this, and from Cosmo’s sputtering, he knew he had been right to do so. “It would be cruel not to. He will have his mark in black, not as a scar, so he knows you are alive. His mark, we can only assume, appeared on time. He will have no idea why you wouldn’t contact him. He doesn’t know that you are any older than he is. Think back to when you were seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. Imagine the you of that time getting a mark and then that person refusing to contact you.”  
  
Cosmo forced himself to swallow his food so he could respond. “I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. I…what if I didn’t contact Jack, just to see if it was possible to resist?”  
  
“It would still be cruel. We need the soulmate mark system to be questioned, but forcing a young man into doing so with no warning? To silently make him an outcast with no explanation? That is cruel. And I would not have fallen in love with you if I truly believed that in your heart you are cruel.”  
  
Cosmo stared down at his plate. “Fallen in love…but real love isn’t for us, is it?”  
  
“Do you still believe that?” Nicholas asked.  
  
“I don’t want to,” Cosmo said quietly. “I want to think that I love you. I don’t want to see Jack and have a world of new feelings opened to me.”  
  
“I have some things for you to read,” Nicholas said. “Like I said, you are not the only person this has happened to, and I have been in blank activism for a long time. But first, we will find Jack.”  
  


* * *

  
  
It was the best-designed government website Cosmo had ever seen. He hated it with every fiber of his being. Less than a second after registering, a profile with the name “Jack Frost” came up. The avatar was a scanned picture of the name in the same handwriting on Cosmo’s arm. Cosmo made Nicholas click on the link labeled “Introduction.”  
  
_Hi there! Jack Frost here! My legal name is Jackson Overland, and I was going to write my address in this post but apparently I can only put that in the “Info for Soulmate” field. But I’m in the United States! I think I can put that. Anyway, I don’t want to put too much information here, because why ruin any of the fun of us getting to know each other? I will tell you, though, that I got my mark exactly on my 18th birthday! What a present! I guess I really am an adult now! Well, wherever you are, I can’t wait to meet you and fall in love with you! Here’s to forever! Looking forward to your message so we can confirm the match and work on meeting in person! I’ve got a college scholarship that will pay for plane tickets, so don’t worry! My parents have been saving up, too, of course. Anyawy! I hope this makes sense, I wrote it as soon as I found the mark! Message me if you are…_  
  
An image followed the post. It was a photograph of a pale forearm with the name “Pitch Black” written on it in tall, cramped handwriting.  
  
“Is that what you truly call yourself in your mind?” Nicholas asked.  
  
Cosmo groaned. “You know I use variations of that for all my online names. I’ve been using it since I had accounts anywhere. I guess…it stuck. I mean, more people talked to me online than in person, for a while. On the internet no one knows you’re a blank. But, nevermind that. Nick, look at this! Look at it! I can’t. I can’t.”  
  
“You can, and you will,” Nicholas said. “Meanwhile, I have some people to call.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“I don’t want to go to another blanktivism meeting,” Cosmo said as Nicholas drove them towards an out-of-the-way art gallery. “I’m not a blank anymore, and everyone will know.”  
  
“It doesn’t change you that much,” Nicholas said. “And this is different.”  
  
Since he had already been persuaded to get in the car, Cosmo grumbled only slightly.  
  


* * *

  
  
The circle of chairs in the gallery was full, but none of the people there were blank activists that Cosmo had seen at other events. A petite woman in a bright green dress rose to meet them, introducing herself only as Tooth. “Welcome, both of you,” she said. “Nicholas, it’s great to see you again. Our groups shouldn’t be so separate. After all, there’s plenty of overlap.” She turned to Cosmo. “I understand that you really need to meet some of the people we have here. But don’t worry. I won’t make you introduce yourself.”  
  
Tooth stepped back towards the circle and beckoned for Cosmo and Nicholas to follow. “All right,” she said. “Would all the married couples here raise their hands? Hold them together, if you can.” A dozen or so pairs of hands were raised, but not everyone in the group was paired off. “Now watch this,” she said to Cosmo. “Now, would all the soulmate pairs here raise their hands?”  
  
“The pairs are different,” said Cosmo, startled into blurting the obvious.  
  
Tooth nodded. “Now, would any officially married couples here raise their hands?” No hands went up. “Oh, yes, that’s right,” she said. “Only soulmate marriages get sanctioned by the state. Now look. We’ve got Cosmo here, and he was taken by surprise by his mark. He wasn’t even waiting for it anymore! And I know we’ve told our stories a lot, but we need to tell them again tonight.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“…deliberate erasure. I mean, it’s great that the pendulum has shifted so that we celebrate the romantic and sexual bond that often exists between same-gender soulmates, but the discourse in the past about soulmates who existed without that romantic and sexual bond only talks about instances of same-gender soulmates. And I know that the ideas that spawned that discussion were repressive, but they were the only ones sometimes that spoke to me…”  
  
“…millions! There are millions of unhappy soulmate marriages, and no one is approaching the issue from the standpoint of ‘well, maybe they shouldn’t have been married in the first place.’ My legal husband and I are best friends now, and I think the journey of realizing that we _shouldn’t_ be acting as husband and wife really solidified our bond as soulmates! We needed each other to help each other grow and become better people, but we weren’t meant to be spouses…”  
  
“…no one ever has more than one name, everyone knows that, but when my soulmark match died so early, I mourned for a few years, and then I realized I did not want to mourn for the rest of my life. I needed to find people who believed in other ways of making human connections…”  
  
“…any measure of community engagement. For most of human history, there was no way of seeking out one’s soulmate. It’s always spoken of as a tragedy, but we have no evidence that people in the past were unhappier than they are today, especially in regard to soulmates. People weren’t fixated on the idea that the name on your arm was someone you had to meet to be happy. I mean, we can’t forget that most people throughout history couldn’t read. And even when they could, or there was a literate person to ask, the idea was often that the name referred to someone who would affect your fate if you met them, with no specifics as to how. And even with all that, we know that those communities were much more tightly knit and stable than today, and I think it’s because everyone was used to relying on more than one person to fulfill them emotionally…”  
  


* * *

  
  
As the rush of conversation slowly died down, a tall woman with long black hair and a short, chubby, blond man approached Cosmo. “Hi,” said the woman. “I’m Sera, Seraphina to myself and people that know me. This is Sandy, my soul mate. And you met my wife when you came in. A lot of people have been giving you theory tonight.” She smiled with a touch of regret. “I’m sure you get enough of that spending time with Nick. But you know it’s hard not to think of our place in the larger world, and hard not to talk of it when we find someone new and, hopefully, sympathetic to talk to. But I think I have something to say that will help you practically right now.  
  
“When I found Sandy’s name on my arm, it was at the expected time, and I wasn’t alarmed at all. But when Sandy confirmed the match, I was shocked. Whenever I had imagined my soulmate, whenever I had picked out someone at school whose name I hoped would appear on my arm…well, my imagined soulmates were always women.  
  
“I probably would have panicked—Sandy and I lived in the same city, so there wasn’t a good reason for us not to meet as soon as possible—except that Sandy also seemed hesitant to meet. My dad raged over the delay, but, with that extra time, I searched desperately for anyone else who thought that the name on their arm had been a mistake—and who had continued to feel that way. I found this group, and while I started getting educated on alternative soulmate theory really quickly, that wasn’t the important thing. The important thing is that they offered to come with me to meet Sandy, and to help me say the kinds of things I felt but wasn’t practiced in expressing.”  
  
“Everyone was quite intimidating,” Sandy said. “But once I figured out what was going on, I was glad that Seraphina had brought the kind of group I had been looking for but had been unable to find.”  
  
Seraphina grinned at him before turning back to Cosmo. “We’re best friends, and we were absolutely vital to each other when we first started learning what it means to live outside of the traditional soulmate structure. We’ve been vital to each other many other times throughout the years. I know I’m a better person for knowing Sandy.”  
  
“And I’m a better person for knowing Seraphina,” Sandy said. “But I don’t think we would be if we had forced ourselves to act like a traditional soulmate pair.”  
  
“Yes,” said Seraphina. “We’re soulmates, but not in the way society expects. But in a way that’s true for us, and that we’ve learned how to talk about.” She shook her head. “And that was the point of my talking to you, anyway! Not to give you another non-traditional soulmate story, but to tell you: We’ll come with you to meet Jack. We’ve got chapters and sister organizations in lots of cities, so no matter where Jack is, you can go to him with people who understand what you feel and who are on your side.”  
  
Cosmo wanted to protest at first. He was a grown man; he didn’t need a clique backing him up against the expectations of one eighteen year old. But, no…it wasn’t just Jack’s expectations he would be facing. It would be all of society’s. Feeling the way he did, he needed as much help as he could get until the day the blank and scarred could hold hands in public.  
  
“I think that’s just what I need,” he said. He pulled out his phone. “Let me see where Jack is. I’m sure he’s replied by now.”  
  
He had. “Burgess,” Cosmo said to himself. He looked up. “That’s about two hours away from here, but I don’t know if any other large city is close. Do you think people will still be willing to come with me?”  
  
“It’s part of what we signed up for,” Sandy said.  
  
Nicholas, having approached the group a few minutes beforehand, spoke next. “There is just one more question, then.” He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and looked at Cosmo. “And you can answer it any way you want. Do you want me there, too?”  
  
“Always,” Cosmo said immediately, grabbing for his hand. He looked down. “This is going to get really complicated, isn’t it?”  
  
“Complicated? Yes,” said Seraphina. “But maybe not as difficult as you fear, as long as you and Jack are honest with each other. And that’s the best we can hope for from anyone, soulmate or not.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #look I actually like soulmate AUs but only when they deal with the significant problems inherent in these AUs
> 
> datenshi-no-hime reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> I don’t really follow these pairs, but I NEED MORE!!!
> 
> sylphidine reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> Reblogging this because I need to digest it, but my first visceral reaction was … recognition.I’ll be re-reading it when I am less tired, to see whether my reaction is an accurate one.


End file.
